Tweet Feed

Them’s the Breaks for Supaloc at Clipsal

Mar12

Written by:Monday, March 12, 2012 8:25 PM

A frustrated Supaloc Racing team has been left ruing what could have been in the opening round of the Australian GT Championship in Adelaide, after a string of axle failures hampered an impressive turn of speed from Kevin Weeks in his Ford GT.

After qualifying in eighth position, Weeks overtook several cars in the first race, only to retire after just six laps when the rear axle broke. It was the third broken axle for the weekend, following failures in practice and qualifying.

The Supaloc Racing team replaced the axle overnight, and Weeks was making blistering progress through the field, storming from the rear of the grid to seventh in just five laps before pitting for his compulsory stop.

Unfortunately, as he exited the pits, the rear axle failed once again, but this time the consequences were far more severe, with the Ford GT spinning into the outside wall at the first chicane. Fortunately Weeks was unharmed, but the same could not be said for his Ford GT, which sustained serious damage.

According to Supaloc Racing Technical Director Oscar Fiorinotto, everyone in the team is now hard at work to identify the reasoning behind the axle failures, and ensure the problem is solved for future events.

“We’re still investigating the cause of the problem,” he said. “We’re going to do some metallurgy tests and also some finite element analysis to try and identify the weaknesses in the axle design.

“It was so frustrating, because we had done many kilometres of testing without a problem, and Kevin was driving really well. Unfortunately, the nature of the Adelaide street circuit, with its savage kerbs, was enough to expose a weakness of which we were previously not aware.”

On a more positive note, Andrew Taplin had a standout weekend in the Supaloc Racing Lamborghini Gallardo GT3. Taplin qualified first in the GT Trophy class and sixth outright, and was holding down sixth position when he retired with a wheel problem on the Lamborghini.

Taplin staged a stunning recovery in Race 2, coming from the back of the grid to finish sixth outright and second in the GT Trophy class.

The attention of the Supaloc Racing team now turns to fixing the Ford GT in time for the next round of the championship at Phillip Island, May 25-27.